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Exhausted

The only difference between baseball and softball is that when you get hit by a softball, it leaves a bigger mark.— Unknown

I don’t even know if I have the energy to tell you today’s story the way I want to. It’s 9pm, and I just got home, and I walked a hundred miles today, and I’m so, so tired, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet (I’m waiting for David, who is still at work – this is the third night in a row he’s been this late).

Anyway, I think I told you I play on a rec league softball team. If I didn’t, well, I do. Mostly it’s people from work, but also some other people who are friends with the team captain (who works where I do). We are terrible. There’s no way around it. We’ve been playing since early May, every week (give or take several rainouts), and we still haven’t won a game. Today we lost 22-1, and even that was a mercy-rule shortened game.

The thing is, there’s no reason we should be so bad. On paper, our team looks good – we have several excellent players and even most of our girls are decent to good (including me). The problem seems to be, though, that the majority of the boys want to do EVerything even when there’s a perfectly capable girl “in the way.” This often results in miscommunication, miscues, missed cut-offs, etc. The boys also seem to get overly excited when the ball comes to them and their inner Major Leaguer comes out and they try to do stuff like field the ball on the run rather than make sure they have it in their glove before trying to throw it.

We look like the god damned Bad News Bears out there, and while it was funny for a while, now I’m just pissed. It’s not really fun anymore. I nearly walked off the field tonight (where I was playing – uselessly – in right field, which I hate, because it’s the “girl’s” spot and I’m better than that; usually I play second base) because people just do not pay attention or realize that we could be a lot better if people would just take their time and make smarter, more controlled plays.

Beyond the sucktasticness of the team, the other problem is, we always seem to play at fields that are miles from anywhere. Tonight I walked 45 minutes from my office to get to the field. Sure, I could have taken the Metro to a stop that would have put me a 30-minute walk away, but since that stop is on a different line from my work stop, I’d have had to change trains and probably waste the fifteen minutes waiting for the other line. Truthfully, I don’t mind the walk there usually, because I look at it as an opportunity to get exercise and warm up for the game, but after the game when I’m tired and it’s late and I’ve got to walk back to the Metro a hundred miles, it’s not so appealing.

I’m not a quitter, though, and I believe that, as an adult, if you make a committment to something, you see it through to the end. Besides, there are only about 5 games left. And I love softball, but that’s a really generous description of what our team plays each week, so I don’t know if that’s enough to tip the scales, because, on the other hand, I have sort of come to dread Tuesdays, and that’s not good for anyone. So, I need to really think about this and decide what I’m going to do.

2 thoughts on “Exhausted”

Mel, I love softball, too. I’ve played since I was about four (including fast pitch in high school) so I’m one of those women that knows what she’s doing out on the field. Our team is pretty terrible, too, but it’s a bunch of friends and we, generally, have a good time playing. None of the guys on our team ever played “organized” softball, and all the girls have as much experience as I do so our girls are actually better than our guys. That’s fun, but it’s not great when the other team has bodybuilder men that can knock 10 homeruns out of the park each game.

I hope that next week is better and that you don’t have to play right field. Right field sucks. It’s where the good hitters hit the ball on purpose. I do it. I always hate it when the other team has tricked me by playing someone there that can actually field, so feel good in knowing that you’re pissing off the other team!